Nanophotonics 2018; aop

Review article

Xuexin Ren, Pankaj K. Jha, Yuan Wang and Xiang Zhang*

Nonconventional metasurfaces: from

non-Hermitian coupling, quantum interactions,
to skin cloak
[Link]
Received January 12, 2018; revised February 27, 2018; accepted
1 Introduction
March 15, 2018
Metamaterials are artificial materials that consist of sub-
Abstract: Metasurfaces are optically thin layers of sub- wavelength unit cells (meta-atoms). They attain their
wavelength resonators that locally tailor the electromag- electromagnetic properties from the unit cell response
netic response at the nanoscale. Our metasurface research rather than the constituent materials and can be designed
aims at developing novel designs and applications of to exhibit properties that are not readily found in natural
metasurfaces that go beyond the classical regimes. In con- materials. Since Pendry et al.’s proposal of using metal-
trast to conventional phase gradient metasurfaces where lic wires [1] and split-ring resonators [2] to realize negative
each meta-atom responds individually, we are interested permittivity and negative permeability [3], respectively,
in developing metasurfaces where neighboring meta- metamaterials have gained monumental research inter-
atoms are strongly coupled. By engineering a non-Her- ests. The study of metamaterials has opened up a route
mitian coupling between the meta-atoms, new degrees to many exciting applications, such as superresolution
of freedom are introduced and novel functionalities can imaging [4, 5] and invisibility cloaks [6]. Unfortunately,
be achieved. We are also interested in combining classi- despite huge research effort and significant accomplish-
cal metasurface with quantum emitters, which may offer ments, these potential applications are still hindered
opportunities for on-chip quantum technologies. Addi- in practice by the significant absorptive loss in metallic
tionally, we have been designing metasurfaces to realize structures as well as the difficulty in the fabrication of 3D
exciting phenomena and applications, such as ultrathin structures.
metasurface cloak and strong photonic spin-Hall effect. In In recent years, a significant amount of research
this paper, we review our research efforts in optical meta- effort has shifted to the study of metasurfaces, which can
surfaces in the past few years, which ranges from conven- be considered as 2D metamaterials. Due to their reduced
tional to novel type of metasurface and from classical to dimensionality, metasurfaces are much easier to fabri-
quantum regime. cate and yet offer a higher degree of freedom in molding
the flow of waves (optical, acoustic) compared to bulk
Keywords: anti-Hermitian; cloaking; optical metasurface;
metamaterials. Being optically thin, metasurfaces have
quantum vacuum engineering; spin-Hall effect.
reduced absorptive loss and thus offer higher efficiency.
Metasurfaces use resonances to achieve abrupt phase
shift on subwavelength-scale distances [7–10] in contrast
*Corresponding author: Xiang Zhang, NSF Nanoscale Science and to traditional optical devices that rely on propagation
Engineering Center (NSEC), University of California, 3112 Etcheverry
effect. By carefully designing each meta-atom to locally
Hall, Berkeley, CA 94720, USA; and Materials Sciences Division,
Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, 1 Cyclotron Road, Berkeley,
control the phase shift, the so-called phase gradient meta-
CA 94720, USA, e-mail: xiang@[Link] surface can tailor wavefronts at will. Typical examples of
Xuexin Ren and Pankaj K. Jha: NSF Nanoscale Science and meta-atoms include multiresonance antennas [11, 12],
Engineering Center (NSEC), University of California, 3112 Etcheverry gap-plasmon resonators [13], Pancharatnam-Berry-phase
Hall, Berkeley, CA 94720, USA structures [14], and Huygen’s atoms [15]. The outstanding
Yuan Wang: NSF Nanoscale Science and Engineering Center (NSEC),
optical performance and design flexibility of phase gradi-
University of California, 3112 Etcheverry Hall, Berkeley, CA 94720,
USA; and Materials Sciences Division, Lawrence Berkeley National ent metasurface have led to the development of various
Laboratory, 1 Cyclotron Road, Berkeley, CA 94720, USA planar optical devices, such as metasurface planar lens

Open Access. © 2018 Xiang Zhang et al., published by De Gruyter. This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-
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[16, 17], metaholograms [18, 19], and multifunctional system. The original and unperturbed eigenstates in the
metasurfaces [20]. system hybridize to form new eigenstates, and due to the
Our group is interested in developing metasurfaces anti-Hermitian coupling, some of the new eigenstates are
with unique physics that enable novel functionalities. decoupled from the decay channels and have very long
Based on the design principle of phase gradient metas- lifetimes, whereas others have enhanced decay rates and
urface, we have experimentally realized exciting phe- can radiate very strongly (superradiant state).
nomena and functionalities, including strong photonic In plasmonic systems, anti-Hermitian couplings
spin-Hall effect (PSHE) [21] and ultrathin invisibility have played an important role in introducing interfer-
skin cloak at visible wavelength [22]. Furthermore, we ence among different excitation pathways. Aside from
are interested in combining classical phase gradient the well-studied plasmon-induced transparency [27, 28]
metasurfaces with quantum emitters, which may open and interacting dark resonance [29], which comes from
up opportunities for on-chip quantum state engineer- destructive interference between isolated and continuum
ing. By placing a judiciously designed metasurface at the states, opposite phenomena such as electromagneti-
far field of quantum emitters, we theoretically showed cally induced absorption and superscattering have also
that phenomena such as quantum interference between been demonstrated. In 2012, our group showed that the
orthogonal decay channels [23] and qubit entanglement anti-Hermitian coupling could also be used to spatially
[24] could be achieved. manipulate light at the deep subwavelength scale [25].
Classical phase gradient metasurfaces work in the We showed that, by designing an anti-Hermitian coupling
regime where the meta-atoms need to be well separated matrix, a system of plasmonic meta-atoms closely packed
such that the interaction between neighboring meta- within only λ/15 separations can be individually excited
atoms is negligible. Consequently, each meta-atom can be from the far field, which are otherwise indistinguishable
treated independently and the functionality of the whole from each other.
metasurface is derived from individual meta-atoms. Our We begin with a system that consists of two closely
group is interested in developing a novel type of metasur- spaced plasmonic antennas, where the resonant wave-
faces, where the neighboring meta-atoms can be strongly length of each antenna is slightly different (Figure 1A).
coupled and the coupling efficiencies are uniquely engi- Due to the strong coupling between the antennas, the
neered. Specifically, we demonstrated that, by tailoring eigenstates of the system become hybridized excitations
the couplings to be anti-Hermitian, the spatial manipu- of two resonators. Therefore, in general, under plane wave
lation of light at the deep subwavelength scales could be excitation, both antennas will be excited. However, we
realized [25]. We expect that, by introducing coupling as found that, when the coupling is purely imaginary (anti-
a new degree of freedom in the metasurface design, more Hermitian), two simultaneously excited eigenstates inter-
novel properties can be achieved. In this paper, we review fere constructively at one resonator and destructively at
our research in optical metasurface in the past few years, the other, leading to a highly localized state. Although the
including anti-Hermitian coupled meta-atoms, PSHE at coupling coefficient is generally a complex number, anti-
metasurfaces, ultrathin invisibility skin cloak, as well as Hermitian coupling coefficient can be achieved by care-
quantum interference with metasurfaces. fully choosing the antenna separation, such that the real
part from the direct and indirect couplings exactly cancel
each other (Figure 1B).

2 Anti-Hermitian coupled In our experiment, we extended the system from two

optical antennas to five optical antennas with deep sub-
meta-atoms wavelength spacing (Figure 2). We theoretically showed
that when the coupling constants between each pair of
Meta-atoms can be viewed as quasi-bound states, which antennas were close to anti-Hermitian, highly localized
interact with each other via direct near-field coupling states similar to the above could be achieved. We numeri-
as well as indirect coupling mediated by radiative chan- cally retrieved the coupling constants and selected the
nels. Indirect couplings in quasi-bound states have been separations so that the couplings were dominated by their
widely studied in various open quantum systems, includ- anti-Hermitian part. Both simulations and near-field scat-
ing nuclei, atoms, molecules, and quantum dots [26]. It tering optical measurements showed that each antenna
has been shown that the indirect coupling gives rise to could be individually excited at their resonance wave-
an imaginary or anti-Hermitian coupling matrix in the length. We also fabricated a control sample where the

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Figure 1: Optical coupling between two optical antennas, which include real (Hermitian) and imaginary (anti-Hermitian) couplings.
(A) Plasmonic system consisting of two optical antennas made of gold. The system is deep subwavelength. (B) Simulated real part (black
square) and imaginary part (red circle) of optical coupling constant between the two antennas, as a function of their separation s. The
coupling consists both the direct near-field coupling and indirect coupling through the radiation channel. At a very small separation, the
coupling has a huge negative real part that comes from the direct near-field coupling. When the spacing increases, the magnitude of the
near-field coupling decreases rapidly. When s reaches 30 nm, the direct near-field coupling cancels with the real part from indirect far-field
coupling, leaving a pure imaginary (anti-Hermitian) coupling. Reprinted from Ref. [25]. Copyright © 2012 by the American Physical Society.

Figure 2: Experimental verification of the selective excitation of individual antennas in the plasmonic antenna array.
(A–E) Simulated near-field distributions of the antenna array at five different wavelengths: 1200 nm (250 THz), 1300 nm (230.8 THz), 1400 nm
(214.3 THz), 1500 nm (200 THz), and 1600 nm (187.5 THz). (F–J) Corresponding experimental observations show very good agreement with the
simulations. (K) Measured intensity of light integrated along the y-direction, versus the x-direction, at each measured wavelength. (L) Near-
field measurement at 1400 nm wavelength on the control sample, which consists of an array of antennas with the same geometry specifica-
tion but at a large nearest neighbor separation of 300 nm. Reprinted from Ref. [25]. Copyright © 2012 by the American Physical Society.

separations between the antennas were much larger. In We believe that the anti-Hermitian coupling can
this case, no selective excitation was observed and all the open up a route for light manipulation at deep subwave-
antennas were excited simultaneously. length scale and can introduce a new degree of freedom to

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4 X. Ren et al.: Nonconventional metasurfaces

designing metasurfaces. We expect that it may also play

an important role in high spatial resolution sensing due
to its ability to eliminate detrimental crosstalk between
neighboring resonators.

3 PSHE at metasurfaces
When meta-atoms are arranged on a surface, spatially
varying phase shift can be engineered at will and novel
device functionalities can be achieved. For example, meta-
surfaces can be an important tool to control and study
the spin-orbit coupling of light. We know from relativistic
physics that particles can have interaction between its spin Figure 3: Giant photonic spin hall effect with metasurfaces.
and its motion (i.e. spin-orbit coupling). Spin-orbit coupling (A) Schematic of the PSHE. When light is propagating along a
curved trajectory, the polarization of light will rotate accordingly.
has been observed in several particles, such as electrons,
This is due to the transverse nature of light. (B) PSHE induced by
protons, and neutrons, and is the origin of many important a metasurface with a strong phase gradient along the x-direction.
phenomena, including the fine structure splitting in atom’s When the light beam is incident onto the metasurface, opposite
energy levels [30] and magnetocrystalline anisotropy [31]. circular components of the beam accumulate on the opposite side
Photon possesses spin as well and theoretically in the transverse directions. (C) Scanning electron microscopy (SEM)
should also exhibit spin-orbit coupling [32]. However, this image of the fabricated metasurface. Reprinted from Ref. [21]. Copy-
right © 2013 by the AAAS.
coupling is usually very weak for photons and the amount
of splitting can only be detected by performing quantum
weak measurements with preselection and postselec-
the same angle but transversely transported against each
tion of spin states [33]. In 2013, our group experimentally
other. We envision that the use of metasurface will open
demonstrated strong spin-orbit interaction of light in a
a new degree of freedom to control the flow of light and
metasurface that contained spatially varying V-shaped
enable spin polarization-dependent novel functionalities.
nanoantennas [21]. We observed the PSHE, where light
showed a transverse splitting in polarizations when light
was refracted off the metasurface. The PSHE arises from
the fact that the momentum and polarization of light
4 U
 ltrathin metasurface invisibility
are always perpendicular to each other (Figure 3). When skin cloak
light is propagating along a curved trajectory, the polari-
zation of the light has to rotate accordingly to maintain Metamaterials have been used to realize invisibility
the transverse property. As a back-action from geomet- cloaks, which can render objects to appear invisible to
ric polarization rotations, the spin-orbit interaction also incoming waves. The design principle of metamaterial
changes the propagation path of light, resulting in a cloaking falls into two categories: scattering cancellation
helicity-dependent transverse displacement of light (i.e. [34, 35] and transformation optics [6, 36, 37]. Scattering
PSHE). For an ordinary interface between two homoge- cancellation aims at cancelling out the major scatter-
neous media, when a Gaussian beam impinges onto the ing field from an object and can be achieved using one
interface at normal incidence, the axial symmetry normal or a few layers of plasmonic materials. This technique is
to the surface eliminates the spin-orbit coupling, and the mostly suitable for cloaking objects that are smaller than a
total angular momentum of the entire beam is conserved. few wavelengths, which have a small number of dominant
In our experiment, we designed a metasurface that intro- scattering harmonics. The other method (transformation
duced a rapid gradient of phase discontinuity along the optics) manipulates the flow of electromagnetic energy
interface, which broke the axial symmetry of the interface using a transformation that stretches and compresses
and allowed us to observe the PSHE. the Cartesian space. Because the Maxwell’s equations
The PSHE manifested by the metasurface can be have the same form under coordinate transformation, the
directly measured with a camera by recording the polar- wave propagation in the transformed space can be inter-
ization-dependent transport (Figure 4). Incident light preted as propagation in the physical space that has a
with opposite helicity are both anomalously refracted at spatial distribution of permittivity ε and permeability μ.

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Figure 4: Characterization of spin hall effect.

(A) Observation of a giant SHE: the helicity of the anomalously refracted beam. The incidence light is polarized along the x-direction along
the phase gradient of the metasurface. The incidence angle is at surface normal. Red and blue represent the right and left circular polariza-
tions, respectively. (B) Helicity of the refracted beam with incidence polarized along the y-direction. Reprinted from Ref. [21]. Copyright ©
2013 by the AAAS.

By specifically engineering ε and μ, metamaterials are embedded in dielectrics of higher index, which intro-
therefore capable of controlling the trajectory of light that duces an additional phase shift in the reflected light and
propagates inside. Since transformation cloaks were first makes the optical cloak itself visible by phase-sensitive
proposed by Pendry et al. [36] and Leonhardt [37] in 2006, detection.
the concept was realized not only for electromagnetic The recent development of metasurfaces provides
waves but also extended to acoustic waves [38] and even another way to manipulate wave propagation. Metasurfaces
the matter waves [39]. are able to induce strong phase shift within a deep sub-
Transformation cloaks usually require extreme elec- wavelength distance, providing a route to very thin (h = λ)
tromagnetic properties that are only achievable with cloaks [43–45]. In 2015, our group experimentally demon-
metallic metamaterials and have been experimentally strated a metasurface-based invisibility skin cloak working
demonstrated in microwave frequencies [6]. The realiza- at ~730 nm [22]. The cloak is an 80-nm-thick metasurface
tion of such cloaks at optical frequencies is hindered by tightly wrapped over an object and can hide the object from
a significant optical (ohmic) loss. In 2008, Li and Pendry optical detection (both intensity and phase detection). The
[40] proposed to use quasi-conformal mapping in trans- metasurface skin cloak consists of subwavelength-scale
formation optics, which can reduce the requirement for gold nanoantennas, which can locally manipulate the
extreme refractive index and anisotropy, allowing the use phase of the reflected light over the 2π range, as shown in
of dielectric metamaterials. This method laid the founda- Figure 5. By specifically designing each nanoantennas, for
tion of carpet cloaks, where the objects are hidden under any light incidence, the phase of the reflected light from the
a reflective layer (the carpet). Carpet cloak in visible range metasurface mimics that of light reflected from a flat mirror.
has later been experimentally demonstrated from micro- As a result, the reflected light shows no scattering pattern
wave [41] to optical frequencies [42]. from the object and the object disguises as a flat mirror.
There are a few drawbacks of carpet cloaks, which Moreover, because the phase is totally recovered, the object
hinder their applications in practice. First at all, carpet is undetectable even under phase-sensitive measurements.
cloaks are typically very bulky. This is because they With the complete wavefront and phase recovery from
require a large volume for refractive index modulation the metasurface skin cloak, we experimentally demon-
to avoid extreme electromagnetic properties. As a result, strated concealing a 3D object of arbitrary for a specific light
complex 3D fabrication with very high spatial resolution polarization. In our experiments, we fabricated an arbi-
is needed, and it is challenging to scale up this design trarily shaped 3D object with multiple bumps and dents,
to macroscopic objects. Moreover, in certain regions of and the total size of the object is ~36 × 36 μm (Figure 6A
the cloak, the varying index has to be smaller than the and B). For each nanoantenna on the object, it compen-
environment index, making it difficult to create a cloak sated the phase difference between the light scattered from
that works in air. Consequently, the cloak is usually the object and that from the base plane. The metasurface

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Figure 5: Schematic view and working principle of a metasurface skin cloak.

(A) The metasurface skin cloak is an ultrathin layer of nanoantennas covering an arbitrarily shaped object. (B) Working principle of the metas-
urface skin cloak. The metasurface fully restores the wavefront and phase of the scattered light and makes the object appear as a flat mirror.
(C) Working principle of a conventional carpet cloak. The carpet cloak has spatially varying refractive index over a big volume, designed with
an optical quasi-conformal mapping technique. It introduces additional phase retardation due to the light propagation inside its host mate-
rial, which makes the object detectable to a phase-sensitive measuring device. Reprinted from Ref. [22]. Copyright © 2015 by the AAAS.

Figure 6: A metasurface invisibility skin cloak for a 3D arbitrarily shaped object.

(A) Atomic force microscopy image of a 3D arbitrarily shaped object that includes multiple bumps and dents. (B) SEM images of the object and
the metasurface fabricated on top of it. (C) and (D) Reflection from the object when the cloak is on: intensity and phase measurement, respec-
tively. The illumination laser has a wavelength of ~730 nm. (E and F) Intensity and phase measurement when the cloak is off. When the cloak
is off, the object can clearly be seen in the intensity image and distorted interference fringes are shown in the phase measurement. When the
cloak is on, the object appears hidden in both intensity and phase measurement. Reprinted from Ref. [22]. Copyright © 2015 by the AAAS.

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was then designed and fabricated according to the height (γ0). Moreover, the change in the decay rate depends on
profile of the object. Experimentally, we showed that, the distance between the dipole and the surface and dies
under both direct wide-field imaging (Figure 6C and E) and off at distances beyond d ~ λ. This orientation-dependent
phase measurement (Figure 6D and F), the metasurface decay rate is the manifestation of anisotropic vacuum in
cloak can successfully hide the 3D object at ~730 nm wave- the vicinity of the mirror. However, it is important to note
length. Because the cloak is an ultrathin 2D structure, it is that two in-plane dipoles (x-y plane) located at the same
much easier to fabricate compared to previous volumetric height will have same decay rates.
cloaks and is fully scalable to macroscopic sizes. In 2015, we proposed and theoretically demonstrated
a judiciously metasurface that can be harnessed at single
photon level, which opened the door for quantum pho-

5 Metasurface-mediated quantum tonic applications with metasurface [23]. We showed that

metasurface can be used to engineer the quantum vacuum
interactions in the vicinity of a quantum emitter located, as shown in
Figure 8 (left), or trapped at a macroscopic distance from
Spontaneous emission is one of the most fundamental the surface and induce interference among decay chan-
quantum phenomena in nature. In a free space (ordinary nels. Recently, in 2017, we also showed that quantum cor-
vacuum), a two-level atom in its excited state decays (via relations could be generated between two qubits located
irreversible process) to the ground state at a rate [46] and separated by macroscopic distances, as shown in
Figure 8 (right), from the metasurface [24].
 1  4 ω03℘2 It is well known that the quantum vacuum of an elec-
γ0 =   3 
(1)
 4 πε0  3c tromagnetic field is the key to many intriguing phenom-
ena in quantum optics, quantum field theory, condensed
where ω0 and ℘ are the atomic transition frequency and matter physics, etc. In multilevel atom or atom-like
dipole moment, respectively. In his pioneering work, systems, spontaneous emission from two (nearly) degen-
Purcell demonstrated that the spontaneous emission erate excited states to a common ground state can show
from an atom is not its intrinsic property; rather, it can be interference, which has led to many counterintuitive
manipulated. Let us consider an atomic (electric) dipole phenomena in atomic physics [47]. The existence of such
located in the vicinity (d = λ) of a flat mirror, as shown in vacuum (noise)-induced quantum interference requires
Figure 7. If the dipole is oriented parallel to the surface, its a stringent criterion of nonorthogonal transition dipole
decay rate is completely suppressed; however, if the same matrix elements corresponding to the two decay channels,
dipole is oriented perpendicular to the surface, it exhibits which is rarely met in atomic physics. However, the anisot-
an enhanced decay rate with respect to its free space value ropy of the vacuum fluctuations can restore the quantum
interference even for orthogonal dipole moments. Several
schemes [48–50] for an anisotropic vacuum have been
proposed and quantum interference has been studied for
a quantum emitter located very close (d = λ) to the surface
or confined geometries. Unfortunately, the minimum
emitter-surface distance is often constrained by additional
surface noise at submicron distances from the surface.
Hence, it is critical to push the distance limitation for an
anisotropic vacuum felt by the emitter.
The decay rate of an electric dipole emitter is given
by [46]

γ( r0 ) 6 πε0 1
=1+ Im[p*1 · Es ( r0 , r0 , ω)], (2)
γ0 | p1 |2 k 3

Figure 7: Dipole-mirror interface.

where γ0 is the vacuum spontaneous emission decay
An atomic dipole (i.e. two-level atom with excited state |a> and
ground state |b>) located in the vicinity of a mirror. Depending on
rate, ε0 is the vacuum permittivity, p1 = ⟨a1 | r0 | b1⟩ is the
the orientation of the dipole moment, the atomic dipole exhibits transition dipole moment of the emitter, and k = 2π/λ
enhanced or suppressed emission rate. is the wavenumber. One can see from Eq. (2) that

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Figure 8: Metasurface-enabled quantum interference and quantum entanglement.

(Left) Multilevel quantum emitter located at a macroscopic distance from the metasurface exhibits coupling between mutually orthogonal
atomic transitions. Reprinted from Ref. [23]. Copyright © 2015 by the American Physical Society. (Right) Quantum correlations between two
qubits located over macroscopic distances. Using an optimally designed metasurface, emission from one qubit can be efficiently redirected
toward the target qubit. Reprinted from Ref. [24]. Copyright © 2017 by the American Chemical Society.

the decay rate depends on the scattered field at the the decay rate (rather than suppressing) for an x-dipole by
local of the emitter. One can design the metasurface changing its phase profile. Second, one can also design a
such that the Im[p*1 · Es ( r0 , r0 , ω)] < 0 for the x-dipole, metasurface whose performance is vice versa (i.e. it acts a
γ( r0 ) curved mirror for y-dipole while at the same time it acts as
which yields ∼ 1 (i.e. we suppress the decay rate).
γ0 a flat mirror for x-dipole).
However, with the same metasurface excited by y-dipole Anisotropic optical response yield interesting effects
γ( r0 ) if we consider a multilevel (in particular three-level atom)
Im[ p*1 · Es ( r0 , r0 , ω)] ∼ 0, which yield ~ 1. Such aniso­
γ0 quantum emitter as shown in Figure 9 (right). To study
tropic response can be engineered over macroscopic the effect of anisotropic quantum vacuum on the dynam-
distance as shown in Figure 9, where show the decay of ics of a three-level atom with mutually orthogonal transi-
rate of both x- and y-dipoles as a function of the distance tion, we started with an atom in the excited state |a1> and
from the metasurface. For y-dipole, we clearly see (as located at the focal spot of the metasurface (acting as a
designed) a conventional mirror-type response; however, curved mirror). In free space, the population of the level
for x-dipole, one can suppress the decay rate over mac- |a1> will follow exponential decay (linear on the log-scale)
roscopic distances. Interestingly, the upper limit to the as shown by the dashed green curve. However, in the pres-
distance for x-dipole is governed by the photonic coher- ence of the metasurface, the transitions |a1,2 > – > | b > are
ence length. However, other factors such as fabrication coupled and the decay of the level |a1> is slowed down
defects and size of the metasurface also limit the distance (dashed red curve). More interestingly, we have a finite
dmax. Here, we would like to emphasize two points. First, population transferred to the level |a2> (solid red curve).
metasurface design also gives us the flexibility to enhance Such radiative excitation of the orthogonal states is “only”

1.0
1
γyy/γ0
Normalized decay rate

Anisotropic quantum vacuum

Excited state populations

|a〉
(Metasurface)
0.9 γ 0.1 P1
|b〉
0.8 d 0.01 P2
Me
tas
urf
ace z 1E–3
0.7
y x
1E–4 Isotropic quantum vacuum
0.6
γxx/γ0 (No physical boundary)
1E–5
0.5 0 2 4 6 8 10
1 2 3 100
Time (γ0t)
Distance (d/λ0)

Figure 9: Metasurface-enabled in-plane anisotropic decay rate and population-coherence coupling.

(Left) Decay rate of x-dipole (blue curve) and y-dipole (red curve) against the distance from the metasurface and (right) Plot of the population
of the level |a1,2> in the presence (red curves) and absence (green curve) of the metasurface. Reprinted from Ref. [23]. Copyright © 2015 by
the American Physical Society.

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possible in the presence of the metasurface. Furthermore, plasmonic waveguide case the qubits are in the near field;
controlling the interaction between the atomic and mole- the metasurface platform provides a route for a more fea-
cular excitation channels has led to several interesting sible experimental demonstration, as it is immune to the
effects [51–55]. stringent plasmonic near-field position requirement of
In 2017, we proposed and theoretically demonstrated the qubits. We would like to highlight that, in the scheme
that an optimally designed metasurface can be used to of our metasurface, the interaction channel between the
generate quantum correlation between two qubits by intro- qubits is a far-field channel; thus, they offer an oppor-
ducing interaction channels mediated by the metasurface. tunity for a spatially scalable architecture to entangle
Figure 10 (left) shows the transient evolution of concur- qubits. By spatially scalable, we refer to the ability of the
rence between two qubits located at h = 10λ from the meta- metasurface to efficiently redirect the light from the source
surface and separated by a distance of d = 20λ and initially qubit to the target qubit for any given separation between
prepared in the separable state |Ψ12(0)⟩ = | a1⟩⊗ | b2⟩. In the them. Such a unique capability results in the dependence
presence of the metasurface (blue line), the maximum of the phase profile imparted by the metasurface on the
value of concurrence is 0.366, which is two orders of mag- separation between the qubits. Figure 10 (right) shows the
nitude higher than vacuum (red line). The heat map in maximum concurrence between two qubits as a function
the inset shows the maximum value of concurrence in the of distance. We see that, in the near-field regime (d = λ),
collective parameters space. Green and black lines denote the entanglement achieved in the presence of metasurface
equal maximum concurrence lines of lossless and actual coincides with qubits in vacuum, however, as the separa-
metasurfaces, respectively. tion between the qubits increases, beyond wavelength, we
Common approaches to entangle qubits use, inter clearly see the advantage of the metasurface.
alia, waveguides [56], localized surface plasmon [57], pho- There are several opportunities to experimen-
tonic crystals [58], and microcavities [59]. Efficient entan- tally verify metasurface-mediated far-field anisotropic
glement via these platforms requires stringent near-field quantum vacuum and entangled qubits. We begin with
position of the qubits, which is imperative for achieving our first choice, which is trapped atoms. In stark con-
high β factor. However, this requirement is an arduous trast to the solid-state quantum emitters, atoms benefit
task in experiments. Moreover, plasmonic waveguides from being identical with well-known atomic transitions
lack scalability to macroscopic distances due to ohmic in optical regime, easily polarizable, and their optical
losses. In light of these inherent limitations of the exist- properties can be controlled on ultrafast time scales. The
ing platforms to enable on-chip quantum entanglement cooling and trapping of single atoms (alkali atoms) are
of macroscopically separated qubits, which are trapped in done very routinely in a cold atom community [60]. More
the far field, the metasurface scheme offers an appealing importantly, the precision in the location of the trapped
platform with novel and unconventional results. As for the atom could be within tens of nanometers from the desired
metasurface case, the qubits are in the far field (located at position. On the contrary, solid-state quantum emitters
a height of 20λ above the metasurface), whereas for the such as quantum dots, color-centers, and defects in 2D

Figure 10: Metasurface-mediated quantum entanglement between two distant qubits.

(Left) Plot of concurrence between two qubits as a function of time and (right) plot of maximum concurrence against the distance between
the qubits. Reprinted from Ref. [24]. Copyright © 2018 by the American Chemical Society.

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10 X. Ren et al.: Nonconventional metasurfaces

semiconductors could also serve as a two-level system. and thin planar structure, metasurfaces can be a promis-
The key requirements for selecting quantum emitters ing candidate for on-chip quantum studies.
(atomic or solid-state) are (a) in-plane dipole moment and
(b) good quantum yield. The first requirement stems from Acknowledgments: The authors acknowledge the funding
metasurface nanoantennas, which only respond to elec- support from the Multidisciplinary University Research
tric field parallel to the antennas. On the contrary, high Initiative from the Air Force Office of Scientific Research
quantum yield is required for measurable signal-to-noise (AFOSR MURI Award No. FA9550-12-1-0488) and Samsung
ratio. Whereas atoms need to be cooled down to micro- Electronics.
nano Kelvin, solid-state emitters work well at a tempera-
ture of ~4 K. Recently, defects in hexagonal boron nitride
has shown good quantum yield with narrower linewidth References
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